Class 7
The role of nature in environmental change I: determinism
Christos Zografos, PhD
Institute of Environmental Science & Technology (ICTA)
Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Spain
christos.zografos@uab.cat
Power, politics and environmental change
MA Environmental Humanities 2012-13
Masaryk University, Brno, Czech Republic

Introduction
•Purpose: nature (geography) can also determine the course of environmental change
•
•Why important to know?
–Another explanation (i.e. beyond social factors) of what is the driving force behind environmental
change brought by humans
•
1

Class outline
•Watch video: ‘Guns, germs, and steel’
–By Prof Jared Diamond
•While watching, think/ make notes:
–What is the question JD tries to answer?
–What is the answer he gives?
•Have a discussion – based on questions (concerning Diamond’s explanation)
2

GUNS, GERMS, AND STEEL
EPISODE TWO: ‘CONQUEST’
•http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=6846344734969027300
3

THE QUESTION
•“What explains unequal distribution of wealth and power among societies around world?” - “Yali’s
question” (min 4.40-7.00)
•
4

THE ANSWER
•“Distribution of wealth and power among societies around the world has been powerfully shaped by
bio-geographic factors” (they explain unequal distribution)
•
5

The argument (McNeill, 2001)
•Proximate causes of success in history: guns, germs, and steel
•
•But behind them lay the ultimate causes of success: a favourable environmental endowment
[geography]
•
6

Ultimate causes (McNeill, 2001)
•Environmental endowment (baggage/ rucksack) sharply favoured some societies (continents) over
others
–Highly probable that lucky ones would in time prevail over unlucky
–
•Great advantages: parts of world fortunate to
–have many domesticable plants and animals
–located so as to favour the migration and diffusion of domesticated plants and animals (the E-W
nexus of knowledge/ technology diffusion)
–
•These parts of world:
–developed useful things farming, metallurgy, writing, states, etc. earlier than other societies
–earlier exposure to "crowd diseases," and so earned wider immunities to lethal infections earlier
•
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A note: JD and ecological change
•Why are we interested in this?
•This documentary seems to be a story about colonialism
•But it is also an explanation of ‘why’ (driving forces) behind the types of environments or
ecologies produced by colonialism
–i.e. explanation of reasons why of environmental change in colonies
•i.e. ecologies hostile to its ‘previous’ inhabitants: disease (germs; yellow fever vectors) and
pollution (Potosi)
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Classroom question: your views
•How do you find JD’s explanation?
–Agree, disagree? With what? Why?
–
•Does this explanation ‘leave out’ anything?
–If yes, what may that be?
•
9

Criticism: determinism
• Geographical determinism
–Given the importance of ‘initial natural endowments’
–Eurasian dominance was inevitable, or at least very likely
–i.e. initial endowments [can] determine the result of the encounter between Europeans and America
(its peoples and ecologies)
•This seems to suggest: if you are in a position of power you will [unavoidably] end up using this?
–Culture of domination/ necessity to dominate: is this important?
–Is culture (of domination) relevant for understanding production of colonial ecologies and
environmental change in the colonies?
10

Local factors
•Possible power (“ability to control their environment including behaviour of other entities”) of:
1.Local populations?
–The actions of those populations have also shaped history and environment
–E.g. early Inca uprisings responsible for shaping colonial realities too – they are also part of
history. Does JD look at/ consider these?
2.Local ecologies?
–Local environmental conditions have also shaped course of colonial project (in its ecological
terms also) – next class
•
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Final note on criticism: general
•Eurocentrist
–Blaut: examples of North-South diffusion of crops in Western Hemisphere, e.g. cultivation of maize
in Peru -> adoption in North America
•Political factors: important
–Importance of politics: Ottoman closure of lucrative trading routes to Orient -> traders: look for
other trade routes
–Trade and importance of culture: individualism, capitalism, rationalism, etc.
•Weaknesses in arguments
–European dominance and colonial success not always based on clear technological superiority in
armaments, nor the spread of disease (e.g. Brits in India dependent on local military force +
divide-and-rule policy)
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